The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

OK, you’ve spent lots of time, energy and maybe money on a great company website. Sure, your mom likes it, but what about a first time visitor? Or a repeat customer? Could there be things you could improve?

If you just wait for people to make suggestions, you could waste months not making some obvious improvements, because you didn’t realize them. A good website is functional, pleasing to the eye, and free of bugs, but the problem is that the people closest to the website may not understand its problems. This is why it is absolutely essential to get good website feedback.

Good feedback includes compliments, complaints and sometimes mean comments. But wouldn’t you rather know and fix a problem quickly so it doesn’t interfere with your sales? When done right, you can gather feedback that will inspire you, give you a fresh perspective and push your profits to the next level.

Whether you’re starting a new website or just want to improve your old one, feedback from actual non-partisan users is essential to make sure that you are getting the most out of your website.

Modern Solutions Make It Easy

Fortunately, there are a number of free and low cost tools out there designed specifically for gathering feedback in an organized and actionable way – no more patching together ideas from a long string of emails. The most interesting ones are widgets that place a Feedback tab or button anywhere you like on your website. When clicked a user will be asked for advice (feedback) and thanked for their thoughtful, helpful effort. Once you get a couple of similar reactions, it’s probably time to change something.

Start NOW

Feedback should be part of your website as soon as possible. The earlier you start asking for feedback, the easier it will be to make a change, correct a roadblock to sales and improve the customer experience (or UX, for User Experience). Don’t wait until you’re emotionally invested in your design to start getting feedback. As soon you have a new design or an existing one, find out what people think of it.

Get Help from Everyone

It’s not only experts that give you valuable advice about your company website, in fact the casual user is actually more important; they’re the ones you’re trying to sell to, right? Sometimes, the most insightful feedback, comes from people who don’t know much about web design at all, but are able to spot something that is confusing or difficult to use. Your website should be easy to use for everyone, not just experts. In reality, the casual web-user is the best expert.

Be Open to Improvement

When receiving feedback, from your mother, your friend or a total stranger, make sure to check your first reaction and think about it carefully. Don’t be in denial, but don’t take just one opinion and make changes either. You need a consensus. Are you reacting because you are taking it personally? Criticism never feels good at first, but once you’re able to take a step back from your design and look at it objectively, you can usually find something helpful. This goes back to emotional investment. Seek feedback only when you’re going to pay attention to it. Don’t become so attached to a design or layout that you can’t hear the constructive ideas being offered by those around you.

So check out the next tabs for some great vendors who can help automate your feedback efforts; and some great deals to make it inexpensive to get started. Your feedback can improve your site and your profits, so don’t delay.

Alec Hess is a marketer and small business expert as well as Principal of Full Voice Media and Vanguard Healthcare Products; and co-founder of BizSaves. His focus is on small business success and he has consulted, guided and advised many firms._______________________________________________________________